It has to be monkeys, they can hang on to trees with their FEET, be taught to play simple games and can dress up and look supremely cool. Dolphins can swim. Good for them.
Heh well as far as intelligence is concerned they are both strong contenders for 2nd behind man. I read somewhere that dolphins even seem to have the edge, for example they can relate to an image on a tv screen straight away while a chimp has to take time to figure out that the flat image represents a real thing.
Its a close call between the grins too: gotta love that perpetual smile of the dolphin, but nothing beats a big toothy grin from a monkey!
As for who would win in a fight… well the water would have to be at a level that in inhibits neither combatant, and I believe this is a purely abstract water level. Would be pretty close though. Dolphins can break ribs by ramming their opponent while chimps have super-human strength…
And whoever said dolphins don’t communicate with people as well as monkeys: try telling that to someone who’s swam with them! Dolphins certainly do have personalities and a complex language of their own.
Plus the military uses them to detect water mines. I guess they could use chimps to de-lice the troops in jungle warfare or maybe dress them up to perform comedy skits to keep up morale, but I havent heard of this.
Yeah I’m going to have to go with the dolphins but monkeys are great also.
You have to teach monkeys games, but dolphins make up their own games and play with stuff.
Oh, and someone mentioned detecting underwater mines…Some military people want to train them to attack enemy divers and actually plant mines, which I think would be awful, because dolphins almost never, ever hurt humans by themselves
Cannibalism has a long and flavorful history in many parts of the world. Protein is protein
While I try and approach all life on a equal basis, if I had to choose to hang out with either dolphins or monkeys, I probably have to choose the one not known for throwing it’s own feces and/or stealing a person’s bananas.
To clear up a few lingering thoughts, ( or more precisely to shut down the anti monkey campaign).
#1. Monkeys can swim (Rhesus Macaca can swim in fact I saw them swim 2 days ago) In fact they are so much more playful than dolphins. These monkeys were diving from trees into the ocean. Not for food, or anything tangible but simply for fun.
#2. Monkeys being unhygienic. Most of the adult interaction is in the form of grooming, which is a part of hygiene.
#3. Monkeys do not do it missionary style. They mount each other from behind.
Now when you say monkey, you mean all primates right? Not limited to only new world monkeys, old world monkeys, apes, or prosimians? There are comparitively few dolphin species compared to all the “monkeys.” As you may have guessed I love monkeys.
Plus dolphins have been known to rape other dolphins. Not so beautiful now are they?
That reminds me… A month or so ago, i saw a program on discovery where they where able to get dolphins to communicate using sounds, simple signs and objects… Doplhins are also the animal who have the biggest brain size compared to body weight, only humans have bigger brains…
Just a note, I like monkeys too… but I’ve seen monkeys raping other monkeys, overpowering them, and even raping younger monkeys, or baby ones. That’s just disgusting.
But can’t judge them all by their worst MONKEYS RULE!!! They can swing on trees.
I feel it, I feel it coming, the monkey people uniting before the third world war the one between …the monkeys and the donkeys…errr the dolphins i ment.